Venus Williams wins Cincy opener

Venus Williams went three sets Tuesday to take a first-round victory over Maria Kirilenko at the Western & Southern Open. Williams, a former world No. 1 who is a wild card this week, took the first set from the 12th-seeded Russian 6-3, but Kirilenko rebounded to take the second set 7-6 (7-5). Williams then put her away with a 6-2 third set. In other action on the hard courts at the Lindner Family Tennis Center, wild card American Sloane Stephens ousted Bulgarian Tsvetana Pironkova 6-4, 6-1 and Czech Andrea Hlavackova defeated American qualifier Bethanie Mattek-Sands 6-3, 7-5. Kazakh qualifier Sesil Karatantcheva, Swede Sofia Arvidsson and Georgian lucky-loser Anna Tatishvili also were first-round winners.